Of Eagles and Birdies
- Jonathan Shipley
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
by Jonathan Shipley
The PGA TOUR Champions American Family Insurance Championship takes place June 1–8, just down the road from the Cherokee Marsh North Unit.
Ernie Els, a 19-time PGA Tour winner, is playing. So is local star Steve Stricker, a 12-time PGA Tour winner, including seven majors. Justin Leonard is playing. So are Vijay Singh, Jose Maria Olazabel, Stewart Cink, Bernhard Langer, Angel Cabrera, and many other golfing legends. As they hit the links, will rare bobolinks show up, too?
Since its inception in 2016, this golf tournament and related events have raised nearly $22 million for the American Family Children’s Hospital and hundreds of other charities.
I drive by the golf course on my way to the marsh in the morning. TPC Wisconsin was founded in 1962 on 154 acres. It was originally called Cherokee Country Club, built on a country of butterflies and muskrats, oak trees and salamanders.
Regardless of the environmental impacts of the golf course (water use, chemical use, habitat alterations, carbon emissions), the flora and fauna on it and near it continue doing their best to not only survive, but thrive.
There is a green heron standing on a green.
There are eagles soaring over players trying to score an eagle.
As players grab their putters for birdies, birds are all around, paddling in the water hazards and spectating from the hackberries as the players take their hacks.
I often take comfort in that persistence. Regardless of our human encroachment here, nature finds a way. As flocks of fans watch Ernie Els play, downy phlox sprouts nearby. As players approach the 18th green, eighteen green frogs sing in the nearby wetland. At the seventh tee, a tree swallow slices the sky. On the fringe, deer. On a dogleg, a coyote.
To whomever hoists the trophy once the golf tournament is complete, congratulations. I congratulate more fervently the chestnut-marked pondweed moth, the blooming field thistle, the song sparrow, and the shining hill of triumphant golden alexanders.
Eagles and Birdies June 2026